Marriage in the canons of the council in Trullo

Abstract

This study presents the historical development of marriage as a legal object in Eastern Orthodox canon law. The argument of the article is that the need of the ecclesial polity to adapt to a new situation following the Islamic conquests of the seventh century led to the development an ecclesiastical common law independent of Byzantine-Roman civil law in order to survive under Muslim rule. The sources of the canon law of marriage were Scripture, patristic customary law, and Byzantine-Roman civil law. It is further argued that the differences between Roman Catholic canon law and Eastern Orthodox canon law with regards to marriage are the result of different political contexts and different theological concerns in the East and the West.